Groomed to perfection, the immaculately-dressed women crowd into a hotel desperate for a glimpse of their hero.

Looking like extras from Real Housewives, they’ve shelled out $100 each for a ticket to the event of the season.

There are trays of Champagne flutes and bowls of chocolate-dipped strawberries.

But it’s the masks and handcuffs decorating this function room in New York that explain why these women are so palm-twitchingly excited.

These are the superfans of Fifty Shades of Grey – and they’re here to worship at the altar of E.L. James, the British mum who has turned an S&M tale into a £75million fortune, reinvigorated sex lives and launched a potential billion-dollar Hollywood film franchise.

Her new book, subtitled Fifty Shades of Grey as told by Christian, retells the story of innocent university student Ana Steele who is seduced into a world of S&M by the handsome but tortured soul that is billionaire Christian Grey.

Eager fans have been snapping up Grey since its release at midnight yesterday, making it No1 on the worldwide Amazon chart within minutes.

But it’s at this one event – at the Garden City Hotel in Long Island – where EL James will be giving her only interview.

A fact which explains why these women are whipped into such a frenzy, when James, real name Erika Mitchell, enters the room. There are further roars of delight as snippets from the Mirror’s first review are read out to the crowd.

“Christian is a fantasy figure and he’s how we think we want men to be... but actually we just want men to do the washing up, really.”

Dressed head-to-toe in black, James admits she has dreams about Christian – but not in the way you would think.

“Have I dreamt about him?”, she says. “I have actually, yes. Unfortunately, they’re very mundane... he’s just doing the washing!”

Steamy: Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan kiss (Image: Supplied by LMK)

Her obsession with Christian doing her chores must be good news for her husband Niall Leonard.

James, a former TV producer whose credits include Shooting Stars, has been married to Niall, a fellow novelist and screenwriter for the likes of Silent Witness and Wire in the Blood, for more than 25 years.

While Niall admits to not being romantic – he revealed he bought her a tin opener on their first Christmas – James raves about their marriage and two sons, aged 21 and 18.

And Niall, who nicknamed the author “my dragon”, is playing his part in this latest book too, as James reveals she got into the mindset of being a man by running everything past her husband.

Some have dismissed the concept of telling the same story from a male point of view as a cash cow, but James insists it’s been part of the plan since the beginning – when it started as fan fiction online.

“I actually wrote a couple out of outtakes as Christian when it was fan fiction,” she says.

“I had thought about it and thought about it. So after the trials and tribulations of the movie I wanted to be back in their world and it was just wonderful to sit down and write.”

Raunchy: Dakota blindfolded as Anastasia Steele (Image: PA)

Calling them “trials and tribulations” is not an exaggeration. While the first movie has made household names of Dornan, 33, and Dakota Johnson, 25, there was almost as much drama off screen as on.

Taylor-Johnson talked about “proper on-set barneys” and the screenwriter Kelly Marcel said her “heart was broken” by the “painful” experience.

James sees her heavy-handed involvement in the film as passion about her personal project, though she admits she was happy to go back to writing alone in her red-brick West London semi.

“It was fabulous to just close myself off and disappear down the rabbit hole again, as it were,” she says.

“And I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being in Christian’s head.

“I thought it would be hard but actually once I found his voice it was quite easy. Like any man, he’s not observant.”

Laughing, she adds: “My favourite thing about Christian is he’s such a bloke. We all know them, we all love them, don’t we? But he’s a bit of a bloke.”

All the chest: Jamie as Mr Grey

The women in the room are lapping up her every word, there’s whooping and guffawing like a mass hen do.

Many are mums – the event was set up by Divamoms.com – and several credit her books as being responsible for their youngest children, adding credence to reports that Fifty Shades has caused its own baby boom.

But despite being the queen of erotica, when it comes to discussing her own sex life, James is remarkably shy.

Asked if the books have improved her love life, she slumps her shoulders and sighs: “I think we should move on.”

What James does offer, however, is that the book has caused some rows at home. Well, the process of writing it anyway. “I listen to a lot of music,” she says.

“Christian has different musical tastes than Ana so I listen to that and I play the same song over and over and over again to the point that my husband starts screaming at me ‘Put the bloody headphones on’. That’s how I do it.”

Having turned the novel round since the film was released on Valentine’s Day, James is now planning a short rest.

“I need some time off and to lie down somewhere warm and have some cocktails served by an attractive waiter,” she says.

But it won’t be for long. “I am halfway through something else which is nothing to do with this, which I may or may not finish... but it’s a luuurve story. It’s set in England,” she teases.

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Her Fifty Shades trilogy – which also includes Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed – as no holds barred but James is a little coy about whether Grey will be the first of a trilogy from Christian’s point of view.

“Let’s see how this one goes,” she says. “I’m not ruling it out.”

Then like controlling Christian, with the crowd gagging for more, she doles out a drop of pleasure, saying: “Well, yes, I’m probably doing Darker...”

There’s an excited buzz, but it’s hardly a spoiler. Fifty Shades of Grey is the biggest ever selling book in Britain.

The second film is due for release in February 2017, with Dornan having been offered almost £1million to go full frontal nude. And women at this event are beside themselves when queuing for signed copies of Grey from James.

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Suddenly in this hotel in Long Island, 3,500 miles from James’s home, a birthday cake appears – and the room of grown-up married mums bursts into a chorus of Happy Birthday.

But it’s not for James, it’s for Christian – the book was released on the anti-hero’s birthday of June 18.

We know he’s partial to candle wax, but why a fictional character needs a cake is unclear.

The other burning question is... is James right that all women really want is a man who’s good about the house?

From the look of this scene, there’s no 50 shades about it. The answer is just black and white – what women really want is Grey.